Marcus stepped into the boardroom.
He did not look at Nick.
He did not look at the other eight partners trembling against the wall.
He walked straight to Carter Holbrook, caught the billionaire by the collar of his double-breasted navy blazer with an unyielding, mechanical grip, and slammed his two-hundred-pound frame down onto the walnut table with concussive force:
*SLAM.
*
Carter’s cheek struck the broken glass of my family photograph, blood welling along his jawline:
*CLICK-CLACK.
*
A pair of heavy-duty, double-locking stainless-steel transport restraints ratcheted around Carter Holbrook’s manicured wrists with two sharp, definitive snaps that sounded like twin rifle shots across the quiet room:
“CARTER HOLBROOK,” Sergeant Vance’s voice boomed through the vaulted ceiling:
“UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO AND TITLE EIGHTEEN OF THE UNITED STATES CODE, YOU ARE PLACED UNDER IMMEDIATE ARREST FOR ATTEMPTED PREMEDITATED CAPITAL HOMICIDE, ENTERPRISE RACKETEERING (RICO), GRAND-SCALE MARITIME TITLE FORGERY, AND INTERSTATE WIRE FRAUD!”
Nick Sterling let out a high-pitched, strangling squeak, his knees completely liquefying beneath his two-thousand-dollar Zegna trousers.
He collapsed sideways onto the floorboards, his hands clawing at Marcus Vance’s boots, weeping with the wet, pathetic, sniveling sobs of an accountant who had finally arrived at the end of the spreadsheet and discovered that the balance was an open grave:
“Officer!
Please!
It was Carter!
Carter told me Aunt Eleanor was going to disinherit us!
Carter told me the Maybach had a mechanical defect!
I didn’t touch the brake lines!
I swear to Almighty God on my mother’s grave, I was just handling the marketing!”
Marcus Vance looked down at Nick with an expression of such cold, absolute, un-diluted disgust that the younger man recoiled as if he had been struck with an iron rod:
“Nick Sterling,” Marcus whispered softly:
“Your aunt Eleanor didn’t die on Route Six.”
“She was stabilized at Saint Anthony’s hospital sixty minutes ago.”
“She has already provided three hours of continuous, recorded deposition testimony to the United States Attorney.”
Marcus pointed his finger at me:
“And her first official executive decree as the primary beneficial trustee of the **Vance-Sterling Sovereign Trust**…”
Marcus Vance reached into his coat pocket, pulled out an unsealed, certified **Emergency Board Resolution and Statutory Receivership Order**, and dropped it flat onto Nick’s forehead:
*THUD.
*
“…was to terminate the partnership charter of Vanguard Creative Group for gross fiduciary fraud.”
